The 13th ANNUAL CHRISSIES - I liked 'em, I really liked 'em

The Chrissies are now in their 13th year...  I don't think 2019 was the most spectacular year in theatre-going it must be said but all worthy winners...

BEST DRAMA (Original/Revival) - A GERMAN LIFE - Christopher Hampton  
(Bridge Theatre)

Nominees:

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURIOUS CHILD (Palace) / NINE NIGHT (Trafslgar Studios) / THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE (Dorfman, NT) / PRESENT LAUGHTER (Old Vic)

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BEST MUSICAL (Original/Revival) - GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY
  - Bob Dylan / Conor McPherson (Gielgud Theatre)

 Nominees:

BLUES IN THE NIGHT (Kiln) / BRIDGES OF MADICON COUNTY (Menier) / 

 COME FROM AWAY (Phoenix) / FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Playhouse)

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BEST CLASSICAL PRODUCTION - GISELLE (Sadler's Wells)

 

 

 Nominees:

MANON (Covent Garden) / THE RED SHOES (Sadler's Wells) /
ROMEO AND JULIET (Covent Garden) / THE SLEEPING BEAUTY (Covent Garden)

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BEST ACTOR (Drama) - ANDREW SCOTT - Present Laughter (Old Vic)

 

Nominees:

ROGER ALLAM (Rutherford & Son) / JONATHAN HYDE (Gently Down The Stream) /
ALEX JENNINGS (Hansard) / DENIS O'HARE (Tartuffe The Imposter)

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BEST ACTRESS (Drama) - MAGGIE SMITH - A German Life (Bridge Theatre)

Nominees:

LINDSAY DUNCAN (Hansard) / NATASHA GORDON (Nine Night) / 
 JUSTINE MITCHELL (Rutherford & Son) / MARTHA PLIMPTON (Sweat)

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BEST ACTOR (Musical) - ANDY NYMAN - Fiddler On The Roof (Playhouse)

 
Nominees:

ARTHUR DARVILL (Sweet Charity) / ALEXANDER HANSON (Follies) / 

DONALD SAGE MACKAY (Girl From The North Country) / LAYTON WILLIAMS (Everybody's Talking About Jamie)

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BEST ACTRESS (Musical) - JENNA RUSSELL - The Bridges of Madison County (Menier)

Nominees:

CHRISSIE BHIMA (Once On This Island) / KATIE BRAYBEN (Girl From The North Country) / SHARON D CLARKE (Blues In The Night) / JOANNA RIDING (Follies)

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Drama) - JONATHAN CASE - Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (Palace)

 

 Nominees:

JOE ARMSTRONG (Rutherford & Son) / JOSHUA HILL (Present Laughter) /

JUSTIN SALINGER (The Ocean at The End Of The Lane) / LUKE THALLON (Present Laughter)

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Drama) - SOPHIE THOMPSON - Present Laughter (Old Vic)

 Nominees:

MICHELLE GREENIDGE (Nine Night) / DOROTHEA MYER-BENNETT (While The Sun Shines) / INDIRA VARMA (Present Laughter) / ANJANA VASAN (Rutherford & Son)

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Musical) - DALE RAPLEY - The Bridges of Madison County (Menier)

 Nominees:

PETER FORBES (Follies) / ROY HAYLOCK (Everybody's Talking About Jamie) / 

ROBERT HANDS (Come From Away) / JACK McBRAYER (Waitress)

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Musical) - RACHEL JOHN - Girl From The North Country (Gielgud)

 

Nominees:

REBECCA McKINNIS (Everybody's Talking About Jamie) / CLAIRE MOORE (Follies) / 

GLORIA OBIYANYO (Girl from The North Country) / RACHEL TUCKER (Come From Away)

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BEST CLASSICAL MALE - VITTORIO GRIGÓLO - Tosca (Covent Garden)

Nominees:

ADAM COOPER (The Red Shoes) / HERMAN COMEJO (Trio ConcertDance) / 

STEVEN McRAE (Manon) / BRYN TERFEL (Tosca)

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BEST CLASSICAL FEMALE - STINA QUAGEBEUR - Giselle (Sadler's Wells)

Nominees:

CORDELIA BRAITHWAITE (The Red Shoes) and (Romeo & Juliet) / 

ALESSANDRA FERRI (Trio ConcertDance) / ERINA TAKAHASHI (Giselle)

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BEST DIRECTOR - MATTHEW WARCHUS - Present Laughter (Old Vic)

Nominees:

JONATHAN KENT (A German Life) / CONOR McPHERSON (Girl From The North Country)  / JOHN TIFFANY (Harry Potter and The Cursed Child) / ROY ALEXANDER WEISE (Nine Night)

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BEST DESIGNER - ROBERT JONES - Fiddler On The Roof (Playhouse)

 

Nominees: 

LEZ BROTHERSTON (The Red Shoes) / ANNA FLEISCHLE (A German Life) / 

CHRISTINE JONES (Harry Potter and The Cursed Child) / TAKIS (Ain't Misbehavin')

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BEST LIGHTING - MARK HENDERSON - Giselle (Sadler's Wells)

 Nominees:

NEIL AUSTIN (Harry Potter and The Cursed Child) / JON CLARK (A German Life) / 

PAULE CONSTABLE (Romeo + Juliet) / TIM LUTKIN (Fiddler On The Roof)

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BEST CHOREOGRAPHY (Musical) - OTI MABUSE - Ain't Misbehavin' (Southwark Playhouse)

Nominees:

MATT COLE / JEROME ROBBINS (Fiddler On The Roof) / STEVEN HOGGETT (Harry Potter and The Curious Child) / LEE PROUD (Once On This Island) / SAM SPENCER-LANE (Maggie May)

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BEST CHOREOGRAPHY (Classical) - AKRAM KHAN - Giselle (Sadler's Wells)

Nominees:

MATTHEW BOURNE (The Red Shoes) and (Romeo & Juliet) / 

KENNETH McMILLAN (Manon) and (Romeo & Juliet)

A GERMAN LIFE at the Bridge Theatre - Old Memories...

Four Austrian documentary filmmakers, while researching a project, found 105 year-old Brunhilde Pomsel living in an old people's home in Munich and decided they had to commit her memories to film.  It is lucky they did as Pomsel died the following year.  Their film A GERMAN LIFE, was well-received and Pomsel's memories have now been dramatized by Christopher Hampton and is now playing a sold out run at The Bridge Theatre.  His play, a 100 minute monologue without interval, marks Maggie Smith's return to the London stage after 12 years under Jonathan Kent's direction; three theatrical greats combine to deliver an unforgettable experience.

Although the moral quagmire that ordinary Germans who lived under Hitler's Nazi regime had to face in later years has been explored in documentaries and books, it is a situation that never fails to intrigue us today - the implicit question asked by those in the spotlight, "What would you have done in our place?" hangs unanswered, and in a world where right-wing parties across the world are gaining power, it's a question that might be asked again.

Brunhilde sits alone at her table, and as her small flat darkens around her while night falls, she recalls her life in the first half of the 20th Century, all the time explaining that her memory is not what it was.  Her earliest memories are of the lead-up to World War 1 and her authoritarian father's absence, his infrequent return visits usually resulting in another baby brother.  After the war her father curtailed her education, not wanting to pay out for it, but thanks to her mother she learnt typing and shorthand so was able to get a job - again, against Father's wishes.

She remembers how much she loved her secretarial work: her first job with a Jewish fashion merchandiser ended when her father demanded she ask for more money, but she was soon employed again, working two jobs as at night she took dictation from a WWI pilot writing his memoirs.  It was through him that she managed to secure work at the main Broadcasting Centre when he was offered a contract, he was soon dumped but Brunhilde thrived there, she happily remembers how exciting 1920s Berlin was, so many things to do and see although most of it was only really affordable to "rich Jews".

It is in those throwaway statements when Brunhilde refers, with emphasis, to Jews that her frequent disclaimers of knowing nothing really about what was going on around her politically hit you as disingenuous.  Her work at Broadcasting House led to a new job offer in 1942: working at the Propaganda department under the Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels.  Her experience in preparing scripts for radio was a natural fit for rewriting the news for the Propaganda department such as altering the numbers of fatalities, downplaying the Allied forces advances, etc.

There was one condition of her job: she had to be a member of the Nazi party.  Showing a blindness to the situation, she went to register accompanied by her best friend, a Jewish musician called Eva whose life was becoming more prescribed which Brunhilde blithely ignored until it was too late and a weakening Eva was reduced to living in a single room with her family.  By then, Brunhilde had become friendly with Magda Goebbels who gave her one of her own tailored outfits when Brunhilde's only smart clothes were ruined, and she remembers with joy when the Goebbels children would visit the office and she let them play on her typewriter.

Despite all of this, she was also expected to 'freshen up' Goebbels' penthouse apartment after yet another visit from one of his many actress mistresses.  By then Brunhilde had attended the mass rally at Berlin's Sportpalast in 1943 to see her boss declare Total War on the Reich's enemies: his cry for every German to fight the enemy was seen as a warning that the war was being lost; but Brunhilde was so bored by it all, it was only after an officer warned her that she started to clap.

And so it continued until the end; any relief over Hitler and Goebbels' suicides quickly replaced by shock on hearing that Magda had killed herself after participating in the poisoning of their six children.  Brunhilde was interviewed by the Red Army after the German surrender and told them everything she knew, expecting to be treated as a 'friendly witness'; she was jailed for five years, ironically in several of the concentration camps that were still standing, including Buchenwald.  After her release, she returned to West Germany and anonymity, working again as a secretary for broadcasting companies - well, she had all that experience.

Not having seen the documentary it is hard to know where her actual words stop and Hampton's input begins but his play made for a riveting evening, aided by Kent's masterly direction, Anna Fleischle's utilitarian set and Jon Clark's slowly dying light.

But we were not there for Hampton's new play, Kent's new production, or Fleischle's set design; it was to see Maggie Smith, back where she shines best, on a stage with a live audience to hypnotize and delight.  Solitary, testy, guarded, Maggie's Brunhilde constantly has you guessing; every pause, every backtracked comment, every evasive 'um...' could suggest either self-preservation or the weary toll of assumed guilt loaded on her by those who were not there.

Humorous, rueful, only occasionally emotional, it was Brunhilde Pomsel filtered through Maggie Smith - her trademark expressive hands and arms conducting our attention and always that voice... cracked but swooping still, she gave us a woman who asked for no sympathy but found it with her subdued response when, years after the event, she asks at the Holocaust education centre what happened to her best friend and learns she perished in Auschwitz.  The play ends with her reminiscence of having an abortion by a Jewish lover who had escaped to Amsterdam as it would have physically endangered her life - one suspects that Brunhilde's life under the Nazis would have been endangered had she had it.

Maggie was quoted once as saying "I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost – it’s there and then it’s gone".  She will be haunting me with her performance in A GERMAN LIFE.

THE HEIGHT OF THE STORM at Wyndhams Theatre - Squall in the family...

When it was announced that Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins were to appear onstage in a new play by French writer Florian Zeller, adapted by Christopher Hampton and directed by Jonathan Kent, I knew it was going to be something to see.  Then I saw the prices...  nothing in the stalls for under £74 - and it only lasts 80 minutes!  Luckily Owen nabbed some Upper Circle tix though of course they were restricted view with the edge of the stage obscured.  And the play?  Well...

This is the first play I have seen by Florian Zeller but I know of his work - all translated by Christopher Hampton in the UK.  While I appreciate what he is trying to do with the form, bending narrative structures and giving you characters who might not be the most trustworthy of narrators, however THE HEIGHT OF THE STORM feels annoyingly slight, like a writer cruising on his tricks, thinking "Oh I can do the same to this situation" rather than it feeling in anyway new and revelatory; just narrative guessing games for the sake of it.

Andre and Madeleine have been married for over 50 years and have two daughters.  Andre is beginning to show signs of confusion and although both daughters have arrived at the family home at the same time, he is vague as to why.  Marianne wanders in and out speaking to the family as she busies herself with dinner but the emphasis is on Andre who listens but doesn't really take in what his daughters are saying about a house that they have seen which might suit him better.  They even bring home a woman who vaguely knows Andre and Marianne - much to the latter's consternation as she has always thought she had been in an affair with Andre once - to talk about the house.  An appearance from the younger daughter's latest boyfriend who is a estate agent only makes the situation clearer to all but Andre.

It very soon becomes apparent (through the play and knowledge of Zeller's past work) that one of the couple has died - but which one?  I will not be the spoilsport and reveal who but it's all quite obvious really.  So in actual fact, I left thinking that the play could have been shorter, there seemed to be a lot of re-stating what was fairly obvious before, so much so that at times I felt like saying "Yes we get it, that person is dead!!"

Yes the play reverberates once the curtain has come down, but I think that has more to do with Jonathan Kent's taut direction - despite the several 'interludes' to show time passing - and of course his remarkable lead performers.  That said, credit is due to the fine supporting performances from Amanda Drew and Anna Madeley as the concerned daughters but Lucy Cohu is, as per, a trifle over-ripe as the mysterious friend of the family.

Needless to say there was enough coughing for the duration of the play to make it seem like Scutari Hospital on a wet Wednesday, but as a tribute to Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins you could hear a pin drop in their scenes together, especially the final scene when all the threads come together.  To be honest, it is this final scene that has stayed with me as it was so beautifully pitched and played.

Jonathan Pryce was remarkable and heartbreaking as Andre, a man slowly losing himself in his own mind, given to panicked confusion as he gets stuck in painful repetitions of a sentence, not able to comprehend recent events despite the clues in front of him.  Onstage for most of it's running time, Pryce radiated an intense charisma.  Eileen Atkins was frustratingly under-used, drifting in and out of the action to drop some withering lines but as I said, the last scene was breathtaking as she took flight with a warm delicacy as Madeleine reminded Andre that she once said she would never leave him.

I'm glad I got the see these two favorite performers again on stage, it was just a shame the play was so maddeningly slight.

LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES at the Donmar: Love and Death...

It had to come... my last theatre visit of 2015.  But what a way to end it with the chance to see one of my favourite plays for the first time since 1990, Christopher Hampton's dazzlingly decadent LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos.

In 1987, four years after falling under the spell of Christopher Hampton's writing with Peter Gill's wonderful production of TALES FROM HOLLYWOOD at the National Theatre, I managed to see his latest hit LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES at the Ambassadors Theatre where it had transferred from The Pit Theatre at the Barbican.  I had missed the original cast of Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan but saw Jonathan Hyde and Eleanor David, the latter giving a performance that was glitteringly lethal.

I saw it with my late friend Martin Taylor and indeed, the more cutting of the Marquise de Merteuil's lines soon found their way into our shared badinage and, sitting in the Donmar betwixt Christmas and the New Year that will mark the 20th anniversary of Martin's death, those lines made me smile all over again.  Sometimes being overly-familiar with a play can be a bad thing but it was a deep pleasure to see the play where it belongs, on an intimate stage.

Laclos' epistolary novel - his one, lasting success - was written seven years before the French Revolution and can be viewed as a devastating critique of the hedonistic society that was to lose it's collective head a few years hence but we will never know for certain.  Laclos' was a military man and you can see his knowledge of strategies and warfare in his tale of two scheming aristocrats who delight in plotting revenge on ex-lovers.

The novel has been adapted for stage and screen in various guises and Hampton's play was the basis of the most well-known film DANGEROUS LIAISONS for which he won an Academy Award for his adapted script.  However the play exerts a particular power onstage and one sits entranced as the conspirators Valmont and Mertueil circle their prey and ultimately each other.  For me it is the perfect play, well-constructed with it's own inner engine, dizzying wordplay and moments of genuine suspense and pathos.

Hampton's delicious trick is to make the audience side with Valmont and Merteuil in their plots - Merteuil wants Valmont to seduce the teenage soon-to-be bride of an ex-lover while Valmont wishes to seduce a married woman famous for her fidelity and piety.  Although reluctant to act on Merteuil's plan, when Valmont learns that the young girl's mother has been bad-mouthing him to his married prey he takes agrees to Merteuil's challenge.

Of course Valmont triumphs in both cases but he leaves himself exposed when Merteuil realises that in the process of seducing Madame de Tourvel he has committed the cardinal sin of falling in love.  Above all else, this means she is no longer the sole object of his desire.  Inch by inch, Hampton pulls the carpet from under the audience's feet as we realise our hero and heroine do real damage to those they prey on and morally the audience is left hanging.

Tom Scutt's design of a grand salon going to the bad - plaster peeling, gilt tarnished, large paintings left unhung - was an interesting metaphor for the society the conspirators embody, and it was warmly lit by Michael Henderson's lighting.  Josie Rourke's production fitted the Donmar space perfectly, if I have a quibble about her direction it is that she has Janet McTeer play Merteuil from the get-go almost like a panto Wicked Queen - all snaking fingers and glaring eyes - oh for Eleanor David's cool, mocking demeanor - but she pulls it back so by the time she turns the tables on Valmont she truly is a fearsome opponent who will win whatever the price.

Dominic West certainly has the right devil-may-care approach to Valmont and, like McTeer, he too rose to the fire and anger of the final scenes well, meeting the knowledge that Merteuil had tricked him into losing everything with a knowing inevitability.  It's just a shame he stumbled over the odd line once too often for it not to be noticeable.

A late replacement for Michelle Dockery, Elaine Cassidy succeeded in the tricky task of making Madame de Tourvel sympathetic and the supporting cast excelled with fine performances from Morfydd Clark as the teenage victim Cécile, Una Stubbs as Valmont's loving aunt, Jennifer Saayeng as the saucy courtesan Émilie and Edward Holcroft was a suitably gauche Chevalier Danceny.

With no news of a West End transfer yet, it is good that this excellent production will be broadcast as part of the NT Live project to selected cinemas on 28th January - click the ad to see if there is a screening at a cinema near you.